New Player Guide

Welcome to Nocturnal Souls! Whether you’re new to Final Fantasy XI or just new to our community, here’s a few pointers to get the most out of your experience.

Client Setup

If you’ve been playing FFXI on another server or on retail, this section is probably just review. If not, there’s a couple of important steps to ensure you’re getting the best experience in FFXI.

We support two windower clients: Windower and Ashita. Each have their pros and cons. Most of the GM and development staff is using Windower at this time, but we’ll do our best to support both.

Be sure you’re installed the Renamer add-on for Windower or Ashita and are loading Nocturnal Souls’ custom renamer list. This ensures that our custom content isn’t mislabeled or simply called NPC. You can read more about the Renamer plugin here.

If you’re newly installed, there’s a ton of new UI features built into FFXI’s client, including multiple chat windows, AOE markers, and party buff lists. Read about tweaking the UI here and learn about the High-Definition (HD) DATs projects to make the game look amazing.

Starting Gear

All new players receive a few great items to start their journey.

At level 1, the traditional retail starter gear provides excellent bonuses and safeguards to get you to level 10 quickly.

Once you acquire some additional gear, you can also augment your gear. Each gear piece accepts up to 4 augments. Tier 1 augments are available to players from the start of their journey and require common items found outside the starting cities and tier 2 augments can be unlocked around level 10-12 (requiring rank 2 with your home nation).

Acquiring Gear Upgrades

In addition to the starting gear mentioned above, Nocturnal Souls has a well-stocked Auction House that self-replenishes itself for lower-to-mid level armor and weapons.

While out in the field, you can use the !ah to browse and purchase from the Auction House.

As you outlevel gear, sell it back to the Auction House for the price you paid for it. The AH-Bot will rebuy gear at the sale price (look for the AH-Bot listings to know what to price your gear). Because the AH replenishes itself and has a fixed price for lower tier gear, there’s no need to horde gear unless you want it for style locks.

NOTE: Selling gear to the AH will REMOVE the augments, so if you have augmented gear you plan to use later, you’ll want to keep that. =]

You can use the !mh to view your Mog House while out in the field and acquire the gil from your purchases from your delivery box, then use that to buy new gear.

Communication

Once you’re logged in, be sure to join our Discord (ping a GM to be promoted to a member) and equip the NocturnalSouls linkshell.

Important Commands

The custom commands on Nocturnal Souls provide teleports, stat bonuses, and information about your character. When starting out, a few of these can make your leveling experience a lot better.

Be sure to always have on signet, either from a gate guard in your nation or via the !signet command. It provides a level-based buff to HP regen, MP refresh, TP regain, and haste.

You can use !shop 1 and !shop 2 to purchase food and medicine to make battles go quicker.

You can easily get back to your homepoint by using !home or leave a dungeon area with !escape. For longer distance travel, the !tele command can get you most anywhere in Vana’diel.

When you enter an instanced fight or are level sync’d, remember that your buffs are removed. Be sure to reuse !signet for your buffs!

Bonus EXP Opportunities

As you’re leveling up, experience gain rate on Nocturnal Souls is increased. It’s about comparable to having all of the Raphosides of Vana’diel completed on retail.

The Field and Grounds of Valor books are enabled and experience from these are buffed up a bit. You can use the !gotoexp command to teleport to popular EXP camps and the list provides recommended pages and targets. After each completion, you’ll gain a significant Dedication bonus for 10 minutes. Use it to boost your gains as you work on the pages.

Daily Hunts provide a good deal of experience points simply for killing common enemy types and provide currency used once you reach higher levels for gear enhancements.

Daily BCNMs, available at level 10 and up, provide experience points, gil, and rare and HQ equipment for the level range of the fight. These are great to do every day, even the lower level ones, to acquire gear for leveling other jobs.

Crafting provides job-level experience. If you’re tired of fighting baddies, head to town and work on your favorite craft–you’ll gain a fair share of experience points every time you skill up!

I just hit 99, what do I do now?

Well, that’s a great question.

By 99, if you’ve been doing a few daily BCNMs and a daily hunt here and there, you should have some stored up Alexandrite and Tanzanite Jewels.

Content

You can jump into doing all of the daily BCNMs, including the now available level 99 fight against the Forgotten Protector. You can also open the storyline for Voidwatch and work on ZNMs in Aht Urhgan. Finally, Legion’s first two or three halls should pose no problem to you, allowing you to start farming Tanzanite Jewels even faster.

If you haven’t already, be sure to finish your nation missions up to rank 6 (at least), the Rise of the Zilart storyline, and the Chains of Promathia storyline. There are several progressions that require those to be completed.

Weapons

You should also have your 75 relic weapon and, if you’re doing ZNMs before 99, your base 75 mythic weapon. Keep in mind this will vary depending on what job you’re working on as relics aren’t available for all jobs.

If you’re needing a bit of a boost to get started, various NMs scattered around the world drop i105, i109, and i119 weapons. If you’re looking for something in particular, use the Items search on the Members Portal.

Armor

You should be working to unlock your gear progression upgrades from Vainrachault in the CML. Each of these tiers will let you upgrade your armor a bit more. In addition, the Alexandrite and Tanzanite Jewels gained from Daily BCNMs, hunts, Legion, and other events will go to use in upgrading the armor.

Once you reach Tier III, look into the requirements to enter The Reisenjima Henge for materials on upgrading to Tier IV and the currency to upgrade your armor to the final tiers.

As with weapons, if you’re in need of a bit of a boost, various NMs drop i105, i109, i116, and i119 armor sets and Legion provides i105 and i109 armor sets. The Items search on the Members Portal can provide you with a TODO list.

Other Questions?

If you have questions or problems, be sure to check out the Troubleshooting section or the Development Roadmap to see if it’s still in development. In addition, on the Members Portal, when you log in, you can see a list of open bug tickets for the community.

Also, the staff on Discord is available to help you when possible, feel free to reach out or post a note in the #support channel.